the biological basis of boys loving boys
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“News that gay men can be sperm donors must be welcome to couples requiring assisted reproductive technology. However, evidence is accumulating that sexual orientation is the result of gene-environment interaction; sexual orientation has a heritable component. Thus, using sperm from gay donors may have the potential of passing the gay gene(s) to the next generation. Patients requiring such service should be informed of such potential."— Frank Sin, Associate Professor (University of Canterbury)
It is unfortunate that the public domain is not always well suited to complex debate. Instead of granting space for real discourse, a robust korero, everything is a soundbite, a simplistically absurd reduction of arguments, ideas and narratives to their most basic precepts. Suddenly everyone has an opinion, some more reasonable than others.
Frank Sin didn't do himself any favours. Given he's an expert in genetics, I was surprised that he wrote the letter in the first place. Until of course one considers that Sin's field of expertise is human male infertility. Perhaps he could be forgiven for wanting to flag a warning about something that he perceived could undo the work to which he has devoted much of his research career. The response from Allan-John Marsh of the Wellington-based Gay Association of Professionals wasn't particularly helpful, or even correct either, implying that homosexuality was innate but neither inherited or heritable.
As could be expected, the mainstream media had a field day, frantically calling whoever they could to milk whatever controversy they could. Much huffing and puffing ensued, redneck opinions were aired, agendas were either pushed or defended, whichever 'side' of the debate you happened to be on. Somewhere in the middle of all this, the potential for the greater public to gain some understanding was lost.
So how then do we approach this topic? It appears that this issue has two distinct components: the biological basis of sexual orientation, and the ethical implications of 'choosing' a child's sexual orientation. Obviously the two are interrelated, but it is a good idea to work out what we think we know, and what we know we don't know about the first part, before trying to understand the basis for the second.
We need to be careful about this term ‘biological’. All too often it is confused with related but distinct terms like ‘genetic’, ‘innate’, or ‘inherited’, but the word biological also encompasses that which is ‘environmental’, ‘learned’ or ‘aquired’. Most, though not all, characteristics that make us human are a combination of many of these factors. When we enter the realm of behaviour, be it social or sexual, these interactions become even more complex and subtle. There are very few behaviours that are either genetic or environmental, innate or learned. Of those that are, it doesn't mean that one is more 'biological' than the other; at its very fundamental level, all behaviour is in some way biological, given that it involves the neurochemical processes of the brain. We can only talk, at most, about predispositions, about relative potentials to be inherited, about probabilities and trends. The very fact that there are individuals that break these trends, the fact that we can only work with statistical probabilities, means that these factors, social and non-social, are by their very nature not deterministic.
Frank Sin didn't do himself any favours. Given he's an expert in genetics, I was surprised that he wrote the letter in the first place. Until of course one considers that Sin's field of expertise is human male infertility. Perhaps he could be forgiven for wanting to flag a warning about something that he perceived could undo the work to which he has devoted much of his research career. The response from Allan-John Marsh of the Wellington-based Gay Association of Professionals wasn't particularly helpful, or even correct either, implying that homosexuality was innate but neither inherited or heritable.
As could be expected, the mainstream media had a field day, frantically calling whoever they could to milk whatever controversy they could. Much huffing and puffing ensued, redneck opinions were aired, agendas were either pushed or defended, whichever 'side' of the debate you happened to be on. Somewhere in the middle of all this, the potential for the greater public to gain some understanding was lost.
So how then do we approach this topic? It appears that this issue has two distinct components: the biological basis of sexual orientation, and the ethical implications of 'choosing' a child's sexual orientation. Obviously the two are interrelated, but it is a good idea to work out what we think we know, and what we know we don't know about the first part, before trying to understand the basis for the second.
We need to be careful about this term ‘biological’. All too often it is confused with related but distinct terms like ‘genetic’, ‘innate’, or ‘inherited’, but the word biological also encompasses that which is ‘environmental’, ‘learned’ or ‘aquired’. Most, though not all, characteristics that make us human are a combination of many of these factors. When we enter the realm of behaviour, be it social or sexual, these interactions become even more complex and subtle. There are very few behaviours that are either genetic or environmental, innate or learned. Of those that are, it doesn't mean that one is more 'biological' than the other; at its very fundamental level, all behaviour is in some way biological, given that it involves the neurochemical processes of the brain. We can only talk, at most, about predispositions, about relative potentials to be inherited, about probabilities and trends. The very fact that there are individuals that break these trends, the fact that we can only work with statistical probabilities, means that these factors, social and non-social, are by their very nature not deterministic.
— Xavier Goldie, GayNZ.com (2006/03/28)
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posted by þΛųL jØŋαŦhΛŋ @ 14:15
1 Comments:
At 2:24 p.m.,
Steve Hearn said…
This is a minefield of a topic. Sometimes I wonder if there is any value in trying to work out the this question of sexual orientation. Maybe its better to just get on with life and try to put others before ourselves, regardless of who they are......
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